7 Days Into Its Release, Chinese Theaters Abandon 'The Last Jedi,' Dumping 92% Of Its Screenings

After its hugely disappointing debut last weekend, China’s movie exhibitors have taken the big, and possibly unprecedented decision to drop the Hollywood studio film
Star Wars: The Last Jedi’s showtimes by 92 percent, from its 34.5% percent share of the territory’s total screenings last Friday to just 2.6 percent this Friday.

I don't normally track screen counts in China on a week-to-week, movie by movie basis, so I can't be absolutely certain, but I suspect this magnitude of abandonment by exhibitors is unprecedented in Chinese cinema history.

Disney (NYSE:DIS) can credibly blame the fact that
Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
and a slew of local Chinese movies are releasing wide this weekend and sucking up The Last Jedi's venues, but the real story is that Chinese moviegoers have rejected
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
like a bad liver transplant. The film earned just $27 million in its debut last weekend, less than one-third of the $87 million that the low-budget rom-com Ex-File 3
earned in its second frame, and it added only $7 million during the week, to reach a distressingly low total of $34.2 million in its first 7 days.

If
The Last Jedi
had been performing the way most Disney movies have over the past year in China, it would have held on to many if not most of those showtimes for its second weekend. The studio's Pixar animated feature Coco, for instance, is still going strong nearly two months after its China premiere.

The draconian decline in screenings might actually help boost
The Last Jedi's per-screen averages, as theater supply falls below the demand of moviegoers who still want to see the
Star Wars
sequel.

On the other hand, it's equally possible that most everyone who wanted to see the picture in China has already seen it, and
Star Wars: The Last Jedi
will suffer a swift and devastating demise this coming weekend.